Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a 2024 Sony Pictures release directed by Gil Kenan and starring McKenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Coon, Kumail Nanjiani, and Ernie Hudson. Frozen Empire is also the 5th installment of the Ghostbusters franchise and the follow up to the 2021 release, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I love the Ghostbusters films, there hasn’t been one that I can honestly say I didn’t get a kick out of and enjoy my time with, and yes that even includes the 2016 film that was overall panned by critics and viewers, I’m just a fan that’s always down for more Ghostbusters content. It’s probably one of, if not the best, horror comedy series to exist. It’s silly and fun and something you’re not worried about showing kids, while also dealing with supernatural and paranormal elements in every movie and has always played with that balance well. This movie was no different, I liked Afterlife a lot and this was probably one of my most anticipated releases of the year overall. This film didn’t carry as much emotional weight or character building/dynamics between one another like Afterlife did, but I don’t think that it needed to. We got through the whole Spengler family reconnecting and giving Harold Ramis’s Egon his emotional and beautiful sendoff in Afterlife, so this one was more focused on building the story of this new era of the Ghostbusters and felt like an extended live action ‘Real Ghostbusters’ episode and I honestly dug that.
I’m also glad that we got to spend more time with some of the OG Ghostbusters this movie, namely Aykroyd’s Ray Stantz and Hudson’s Winston who had titular roles in the film and were with us a lot throughout the story, but even ole Bill clocked back in and suited up as Venkman for a few scenes and I ate it all up. McKenna Grace kind of played the closest thing to the main lead in this film as Phoebe Spengler and did a sufficient job with the role, she’s a pretty legit young actress with a lot of promise. All she needs to do to nail this role though is study Harold’s Egon from the first 2 Ghostbusters because she feels like the embodiment of just a female, teenage Egon Spengler. It’s her grandpa though in story so it plays well and it’s kind of a sweet homage to Harold Ramis to keep his legacy living on in the franchise through her and the Spengler family. I was also quite fond of the setup of the villain in this movie, Garraka. He was like an evil mythological beast with a cool back story, an imposing look, and just as much if not more threatening power than even Gozer from the original film. I just wish we got to spend more time with him and with the ‘Frozen Empire’ that the movie is named after. A lot of this movie was setting up the impending doom but the actual play out of Garraka’s wrath was no more than 20-25 minutes maybe and that was a little disappointing, but we still got to see his fury and his power in action some and it was well done for what we did get. That’s kind of the thing with Ghostbusters villains though, they’re always mythological, supernatural, or otherworldly forces so humans don’t stand a chance in a face-to-face kind of situation. So, we rely on our characters coming up with methods and plans to defeat the ultimate evil that is being teased throughout the film before they ever show up. So that in turn doesn’t allow the villains to ever reach their full potential in any of the Ghostbusters movies, because if they reached their full potential within the films then the world would just end almost every time. I know and understand that method, Garraka was just a cool villain, so I selfishly wanted to spend more time seeing that character.
Another complaint I’d have about this film specifically is that there was a lot of mini storylines going on within the main overarching plot and it at times felt a bit convoluted and messy to juggle between all these characters and their individual stories and motivations throughout the film. I loved that we got to see and spend as much time as we did with all these characters, both new and old, but it made everyone’s own stories feel a bit watered down and mashed up at times as so much was kind of going on with everyone at different times. Another key thing, probably the biggest complaint for me personally is that some of these side characters felt pointless to the film at times. I get that if we’re creating a franchise with this new generation you want to feature the new generation of characters and that’s awesome and completely understandable, but at least give them reason and meaning for being there if they’re going to be a part of everything with the group. Podcast (Phoebe’s friend), Lucky (Trevor’s friend), and even Trevor himself didn’t necessarily feel needed for the plot throughout this movie and were just kind of there by proxy, the same could be said for Venkman as well but he’s already established as an OG Ghostbuster, so I was just happy to see him and let that one slide. Overall though, I really enjoyed this movie. It was your typical Ghostbusters fun! We got to spend more time with the Spengler family and the rest of the new cast of characters and get more established with them, we got to see and spend a lot of time in that classic firehouse, see how much the Ghostbusters Corp has grown through Winston and his company, get some classic Ray Stantz supernatural loving weirdo moments, and even got some cameos from our classic ghosts through the mini Stay Puft marshmallow men and the lady in the library. I think this was a solid enough step into establishing our new generation of Ghostbusters as something of their own, while also keeping the nostalgia alive with the classic characters, villains, and references. This doesn’t top the original Ghostbusters for me by any means, but that’s one of my favorite movies ever so that’s a tall task to accomplish, but like I said earlier I don’t think this franchise has ever released a poor movie and this stood up to that task and is a welcome addition to the series that I will certainly be rewatching with the rest of them throughout the years. Here’s to hoping they can stay on this path and give us more movies or even a streaming series revolving around this new generation in the coming years, I’m all in!
